Victor Vance Anderson was born in Barbourville, Kentucky in 1878. He graduated from the University of Louisville Medical School in 1903, and later attended Harvard University in 1916 to obtain his Master’s Degree in Psychology. Dr. Anderson worked at the Boston Psychopathic Hospital, the Psychiatric Clinics of the Municipal Court in Boston, the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, and R.H. Macy Department Store in NYC, before eventually founding the Anderson School.
Dr. Anderson believed that children with special needs would benefit from an integrated program that comprehensively addressed their educational, emotional and social needs during a time when many special needs children were institutionalized. He opened the school in 1924, on a farm in Shrewsberry, NJ. Two years later, he would purchase the Mansewood country estate in Staatsburg NY, and move the school to this new location.
Dr. Anderson served as director of the school for many years until his death. He passed away in 1960 at 82 years old, but his legacy and work still live on at Anderson Center for Autism, where over 200 individuals on the autism spectrum thrive and receive daily services and care.
